War: The University in Suspended Animation

Abstract

As soon as the Japanese invasion began, the university halted its operations. During the following three years and eight months, Japan occupied Hong Kong. With the exception of a few who managed to flee Hong Kong, most educators who were nationals of countries at war with Japan were kept in internment camps. The bulk of the students fled across the border into China, where medical students generally were able to continue their studies, assisted by two HKU professors, Gordon King and Lindsay Ride. The General Medical Council in London agreed to recognize their medical credentials if they had spent at least two years at Hong Kong University. Many students underwent great privation during their years in the mainland but the result was that, during the postwar medical rehabilitation period, Hong Kong had the benefit of their medical expertise. The university, too, formally reopened its doors in 1948 but the British government only agreed to the institution’s return to its prewar scale.